Brenda L. Bannon

Brenda Bannon is of counsel with Ogletree Deakins and joined the firm in March 2019 after more than twenty years of litigation experience. She provides employment law advice, litigation, and workplace investigation services.  Ms. Bannon is also experienced in labor arbitration matters.

Ms. Bannon is an experienced litigator and workplace investigator. Additionally, her employment law practice includes providing both private and public sector employers proactive advice and practical solutions to current or potential employee problems to manage risk related to discipline, discrimination, retaliation, disability accommodation, ADA, Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), FMLA, Labor & Industry parameters, breach of contract, wrongful discharge, and termination. Ms. Bannon also advises regarding recruiting, hiring, training, performance management, promoting and issues pertaining to internal policy development and employee benefits.

Ms. Bannon additionally provides defense services responding to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Human Rights Commission charges, assisting employers in navigating current harassment and discrimination investigations, and defending employment claims in litigation.

Ms. Bannon has extensive experience conducting independent workplace investigations.  She is frequently hired to investigate “C-Suite” employment complaints in Washington State for private and public employers. This includes conducting investigations for national or multinational corporations.

Ms. Bannon’s litigation practice extends to defending the case through the appellate courts.

Before joining Ogletree Deakins, Ms. Bannon’s practice emphasized the defense of municipal and other governmental clients in state and federal court litigation, with a strong track record of summary judgment victories. She additionally provided routine employment law advice and counsel to local agencies’ human resources professionals. Her litigation work has also included defending police officers and their departments from claims alleging civil rights violations; defending police agencies at Inquests; and defending government agencies against road design claims alleging negligence, wrongful death, and other traditional tort-based claims.

Before pursuing her private practice career in 1998, Ms. Bannon was a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County; for most of a decade she worked as a trial attorney prosecuting felony cases and defending the trial victories on appeal.